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Planned Chaos

Today’s Greensboro News & Record published my letter to the editor regarding Dell’s announcement that they will be closing up shop.

“No regrets” is how Bob Leak Jr., president of Winston-Salem Business Inc., sums his feelings in wake of the Dell closing (“Dell to close its Winston-Salem plant,” Oct. 8).

Why should he feel any regrets? After all, Mr. Leak still has his job.

Not so for the 905 employees whose lives will be devastated by their job loss. Ditto for the local restaurant, retail, day care and other workers who will either lose their jobs or see their hours cut because business will slow due to Dell’s closing.

Leak and other central planners distort the economy’s allocation of resources through targeted incentives and tax breaks awarded to businesses with the most effective lobbyists. Even in light of the continued failure of such policies, the planners will “do it again, given the chance” because they themselves have nothing at stake.

As a result of the Dell incentives game, Forsyth County now includes hundreds of families distraught by job losses, a massive, 750,000-square-foot facility that will sit idle, and millions worth of squandered equipment and resources that were diverted from other, potentially profitable, uses.

Will the central planners ever admit to the economic chaos they cause?

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